Lena Dunham's 'Your first time' election ad

So Lena Dunham has cut a web ad for the Obama campaign, comparing first time voting with losing your virginity.

It's an extended and rather mild double entendre along the lines of who you want to go with the first time – but it's enough to raise indignation amongst Republicans this evening, who appear easily shocked.

PPP's newest Colorado poll finds Barack Obama's position improving slightly in the state after his debate victory this week. He now leads Mitt Romney 51-47, up from a 50-47 spread last week.

Colorado voters think Obama was the winner of Monday night's debate by a 51/38 margin, and it seems to be having a positive impact on his approval numbers. 51% of voters give him good marks to 47% who disapprove, up from a 49/49 spread last week. Romney's favorability numbers are unchanged from a week ago with 48% of voters rating him favorably and 49% unfavorably. Voters trust Obama more on both the economy (50/46) and Libya (53/44) than they do Romney.

It’s incredibly irresponsible for anyone to take what Richard said about his views on life to demean his opposition to the detestable act of rape.

We’re at the end of an election season here and I understand each side is looking to make hay out of every comment, but sharing the view of millions of Americans that life begins at conception is Richard’s deeply held personal belief that shouldn’t be misconstrued by partisans to imply something it does not.

Indiana's Richard Mourdock emerged from where ever he was hiding today to speak "about American history in front of a crowd of a few dozen at the Crawfordsville District Public Library," the Indianapolis Star reports.

Asked about voters who decided not to vote for him after his debate comment, Mourdock said "I haven't heard of those voters." He was then told of a voter who did just that and replied, "I assured all women that the issue of rape is a serious issue. It is not one that my God condones. If anyone thinks that I would condone that, that's a ludicrous point of view."

Also asked if campaign gained votes after the abortion comment, Mourdock replied: "I know we did."

Hmm, that suggests Mourdock doesn't quite grasp where he went wrong. I'm not sure anyone sane thinks he condoned rape.

"I voted?" the president asks the official. Assured that his vote was registered, Pres Obama says of the early process "this is wonderful?"

Obama then has a quick word with the cameras:

If you have not yet early voted I just wanted everyone to see what an efficient process this is ... All across the country we're seeing a lot more early voting, you don't need to figure out how to take time off work.

"I can't tell you who I voted for," says Obama, meaning that Wolf Blitzer is probably doubled up with laughter right now. Thanks to all involved, and Obama asks if they can take a photo with the poll workers. "Is that allowed?" he wonders. It seems that it is

We go live to Chicago, where Barack Obama is voting. He's been asked for his photo ID, and he appears to hand over a driver's license. Or maybe it's a special American Express presidential Titanium card.

"It's a good thing I got my driving license renewed," jokes Obama. "Ignore the fact that there’s no grey hair in that picture."

Obama talks with the poll workers, and there's some beeping going on. He then gets his voting card and then he goes off to a little blue canvas booth thing.

"It's a secret ballot, we have no idea who he is going to vote for," Wolf Blitzer tells us on CNN, in a masterful display of Stating The Bleedin' Obvious.

Barack Obama shows his drivers license before casting his vote early today at the Martin Luther King Community Center in Chicago. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

As Romney hits 50%, the president stands at 47%, his lowest tally in Post-ABC polling since before the national party conventions. A three-point edge gives Romney his first apparent advantage in the national popular vote, but it is not one that is statistically significant with a conventional level of 95 percent confidence.

Results from the tracking poll were first released Monday evening, and had Obama at 49%, and Romney at 48. On Tuesday and Wednesday, the results were flipped, with Romney at 49 and the president at 48. All of the results are among likely voters.

The 'bullshitter' campaign begins?

Asked to explain Obama's remark, spokesman Dan Pfeiffer told reporters that he hadn't seen the article, but went on to say: "Trust is a very important part of the election. The president is someone who says what he means and does what he says, and Governor Romney's answers in the debates on domestic issues and foreign policy raise real questions about that."

Here's a hilarious diversion from the horse race: the Washington Examiner makes an argument that this weekend's college football match between Ohio State and Penn State could decide the presidential election:

In their article titled “Irrelevant events affect voters’ evaluations of government performance,” economists Andrew Healy, Neil Malhotra, and Cecilia Mo, analyzed the electoral impact of local college football games on county-level election results from presidential elections between 1964 and 2008. They found that a victory by the local team on the Saturday 10 days prior to election day increased the incumbent party’s vote share by 1.13 percentage points.

But the effect was even stronger for what the researchers classified as “high-attendance teams,” defined as the teams with highest average home attendance from 1998 to 2007. Ohio State is on this list. The study found that when these high-attendance teams win on on the Saturday 10 days prior to election day, the incumbent party gained 3.09 percentage points.

So if Ohio State wins, Obama gets a boost at the ballot box on election day. And if course, if Obama wins Ohio, Mitt Romney has to run the board elsewhere to take the White House.

So if you're a Democrat, there's another reason to hate on Penn State.

Part of the confusion (and part of the reason behind the perception that Mr Romney is still gaining ground in the race) may be because of the headlines that accompany polls.

We’re still getting some polls trickling in where the most recent comparison is to a poll conducted before the Denver debate. We should expect Mr Romney to gain ground relative to a poll conducted before Denver. (Mr Romney may have lost a point or so off his bounce, but he has clearly not lost all of it). But it isn’t news when he does; Mr Romney’s Denver gains had long ago become apparent, and priced into the various polling averages and forecast models.

The question, rather, is whether Mr Romney is gaining ground relative to the post-Denver polls — or if, as Wednesday’s polls seemed to imply, the race instead may have ticked back slightly toward Mr Obama.

Interesting: Reuters reports that a Libyan militant suspected by Egypt of involvement in last month's attack on the US consulate in Libya has been killed during a raid by Egyptian security forces in Cairo.

The Libyan, identified as Karim Ahmed Essam el-Azizi, was killed by a bomb he had tried to use against the security forces during the raid, the security official said.

It was not immediately clear what role Azizi had played in the assault on the US consulate in the eastern Libyan city of Benghazi on September 11, in which the ambassador, Chris Stevens, and three other Americans were killed.

Republicans say they have raised $112m this month

The Romney campaign is touting some in-house numbers claiming that the Romney for President campaign, Romney Victory, and the Republican National Committee have raised nearly $112m between 1 October to 17 October 17. They also say that the campaign, the RNC and "state party participants" have approximately $169m cash on hand.

At this time of the campaign cycle it's worth taking these sorts of figures with a dash of salt: there's no way of knowing if they are true, and no breakdown given between the various funds, such as what share was raised by the RNC, which has different restrictions on its spending.

The Mourdock controversy comes just as Mitt Romney should have been enjoying some good news from a new AP-GfK poll showing him gaining in support from women voters:

As the election nears, Romney has been playing down social issues and trying to project a more moderate stance on matters such as abortion in an effort to court female voters. The AP-GfK poll, taken Friday through Tuesday, shows Romney pulling even with Obama among women at 47-47% after lagging by 16 points a month earlier.

But now his campaign is grappling with the fallout from a comment by a Romney-endorsed Senate candidate in Indiana, who said that when a woman becomes pregnant during a rape "that's something God intended."

A renewed focus on social issues would be an unwelcome development for Romney: Among female likely voters, 55% say Obama would make the right decisions on women's issues, compared with 41% who think Romney would.

An emotional Richard Mourdock told fellow Republicans here that this “has been one of the toughest days of my life” as the GOP Senate candidate acknowledged creating “quite a firestorm” from his controversial comments on rape and abortion.

“Today has not been a fun day,” a teary-eyed Mourdock told a private dinner meeting of the Hamilton County Republican Party. “Professionally, emotionally, it’s been one of the toughest days of my life quite frankly.”

Sounds a little like a horrible situation that God intended to happen?

John McCain has got the memo about how Republicans really need Richard Mourdock to win his election in Indiana in order for his party to win a majority in the Senate:

A spokesman for Republican John McCain says the senator is now backing Indiana's Richard Mourdock after the candidate explained his remark that pregnancy from rape is "something God intended."

Brian Rogers issued a statement Thursday just hours after McCain had said he was uncertain about supporting Mourdock in an interview with CNN's Anderson Cooper. McCain had said his endorsement depended on a Mourdock apology.

“I absolutely abhor violence. I abhor any kind of sexual violence. I abhor rape,” [Mourdock] said. “The God that I worship would never ever want to see evil done. ... I spoke from my heart. I spoke with my principle. I spoke from my faith.”

Anyone who viewed the videotape from the Senate debate “understands fully what I meant,” he said, while also saying that he had been “inarticulate.”

“So many people mistook, twisted, came to misunderstand the points that I was trying to make,” he said. “Certainly I did not intend to suggest that God wants rape, that God pushes people to rape.

“The fact that I left any doubt as to what my meaning was on where my positions are on abortion, that I regret and that I apologize for. But I stand by my positions.”

He grew impatient as reporters tried to clarify that his apology was not for his words but for their interpretation.

“The apology — as I said before, roll this tape back — is if anybody misinterpreted what I said,” Mourdock said.

When he took over, the country was in very very difficult straits. We were in the one of the worst recessions we had seen in recent times, close to a depression. The fiscal system was collapsing. Wall Street was in chaos, we had 800,000 jobs lost in that first month of the Obama administration and unemployment peaked a few months later at 10%. So we were in real trouble. The auto industry was collapsing, the housing was start[ing] to collapse and we were in very difficult straits. And I saw over the next several years, stabilization come back in the financial community, housing is now starting to pick up after four years, it's starting to pick up. Consumer confidence is rising.

Obama labels Romney a 'bullshitter'

Lessons in hardball presidential politics from Barack Obama: How to slyly call your opponent a bullshitter.

According to Mike Allen's Playbook, in an interview with Douglas Brinkley about to appear in Rolling Stone, Obama obliquely dropped the bullshitter tag on Romney's head:

We arrived at the Oval Office for our 45-minute interview … on the morning of October 11th. … As we left the Oval Office, executive editor Eric Bates told Obama that he had asked his six-year-old if there was anything she wanted him to say to the president. … [S]he said, ‘Tell him: You can do it.’ Obama grinned. … ‘You know, kids have good instincts,’ Obama offered. ‘They look at the other guy and say, “Well, that’s a bullshitter, I can tell.”’

Republican senate candidate Richard Mourdock's comments on rape and abortion have seen GOP heavyweights rush to distance themselves from the fallout, as Barack Obama added to the misery with a high profile attack on Mourdock's comments.

Former Republican National Committee chairman Hayley Barbour described Mourdock's comments that rape was "part of God's plan" as "kind of crazy," following Senator John McCain's demand for an apology from Mourdock in return for his endorsement.

Appearing on the Jay Leno show last night, Obama weighed in on Mourdock's statement:

Let me make a very simple proposition, rape is rape. It is a crime. And so these various distinctions about rape don’t make too much sense to me, don’t make any sense to me.

The Democratic party sought to capitalise on the Republican dismay with a new ad linking Mitt Romney to Mourdock, opening another front in the battle for women voters.

Republican Senator Kelly Ayotte of New Hampshire and Mike Pence, the Republican candidate for governor of Indiana – Mourdock's home state – attempted to disown Mourdock by repudiating his remarks, with Ayotte cancelling a planned appearance.

While that continues, Barack Obama plans to make history today when he becomes the first presidential candidate to take advantage of early voting when he casts his ballot in Illinois this afternoon.